Panera plans to open in the fall

Trash removal plan discussion perturbs council

A Panera Bread restaurant won approval from the Highland Park City Council this week and is expected to open in the fall, but its owner stumbled in discussing trash removal.

As a condition of opening at 1853-1859 Second St., the franchise was expected to help create a pedestrian walkway linking First and Second streets — adjacent to the Panera and partially along the edge of a busy municipal parking lot.

At a previous meeting, the council granted a parking restriction between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. in three municipal parking spaces to allow waste haulers to access Panera's dumpsters for morning trash removal from across the pedestrian walkway. The final approval for the Panera project was to grant an easement in the lot for the walkway.

But Jason Berg, Panera franchiser, enraged several councilmen during their Monday meeting when he said trash would be picked up through the First Street parking lot behind the restaurant — a concept which had never been addressed.

"Either when First Street gets redeveloped or a compactor becomes feasible, there will be no trash access from the Second Street parking lot," Berg said. "This whole concern of this was in case First Street gets developed and we don't have access."

"This is new information," said Corporation Council Steven Elrod. "Why do we need signage in our lot if there's no intent to use our city lot?"

Property owner Joan Loeb tried to assure the council that the Panera dumpster would be accessed through the Second Street lot, but Mayor Nancy Rotering halted the discussion and sent Berg and his team into the hallway to confer.

"We don't have an agreement on the facts," Rotering said. "So if we could get the facts clear, I'd like to move on because we have a long agenda."

"We have contorted ourselves to reconfigure a public parking lot, which could essentially anger every constituent out there," Higginson said. "It makes me sick and I'm unhappy that you are putting us in the position of saying yes when it's very clear something else is going on."

After the council considered another lengthy agenda item, Berg returned to disavow his earlier comments.

"There's definitely been some miscommunication and I want to apologize for this," Berg said. "We are proceeding with trash removal through the Second Street parking lot. My apologies in the thoughts that we could have trash removed from the First Street side. It is not workable."

The council voted 5-2 to approve the easement to allow a pedestrian walkway, with Councilmen Paul Frank and David Naftzger voting no.

"Despite what you think, I am looking forward to eating at Panera. I do like it," Frank said. "I'm really unhappy that we can't all walk away from the process with a feeling of trust that we have each other's common interest at heart."

After the meeting, Berg said he expects to obtain a certificate of occupancy from the city and have the restaurant open in about six months.